Perloo (Pilau)

Ingredients

• 500 g bone-in chicken thighs, skin on
• 250 g smoked sausage, sliced into rounds
• 300 g Carolina Gold long-grain rice, or best available long-grain white rice
• 600 ml chicken stock, good body; adjusted for moisture from tomato and protein
• 1 (400 g) tin whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand; do not increase — perloo is not a tomato stew
• The trinity (Carolina form)
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 3 celery stalks, finely diced
• 1 green pepper, finely diced
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 tsp hot sauce, to serve alongside

Method

1. 1
   Season the chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper. Set a wide, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Lay the chicken skin-side down and cook undisturbed until the skin is deep golden and fat has rendered freely into the pot. Turn and brown the second side. Remove the chicken and set aside. Add the sausage rounds to the rendered fat and brown on both cut faces. Remove and set aside. The pot should hold a substantial fond and a visible pool of seasoned fat — this is the flavour base.
2. 2
   Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion, celery, and green pepper to the fat in the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have softened and the onion is translucent with no raw edge remaining. Add the garlic and stir for one further minute until fragrant.
3. 3
   Add the crushed tomatoes and stir to lift the fond from the base of the pot. Cook for two to three minutes until the tomato has deepened slightly in colour and the raw acidity has rounded. The mixture should look cohesive, not watery.
4. 4
   Pour in the chicken stock. Return the browned chicken and sausage to the pot. Bring to a steady simmer. The stock should be well seasoned at this point — taste and adjust salt. What the rice absorbs, it cannot be corrected for afterwards.
5. 5
   Add the rice in an even layer, pressing it gently beneath the surface of the liquid. The liquid-to-rice ratio is approximately 2:1, already adjusted by the tomato and protein moisture now present in the pot. This is where the dish lives or dies: fit the lid as tightly as possible, reduce the heat to the lowest setting that maintains a bare simmer, and do not lift the lid. The steam contained in the pot does the work. Any lift releases it and the rice will cook unevenly.
6. 6
   After eighteen to twenty minutes, listen for the sound in the pot to shift from the soft bubble of simmering liquid to a quiet, intermittent crackle — the sound of no remaining free liquid and the bottom layer of rice beginning to caramelise against the fond. Remove from the heat. Leave, lid still on, for five minutes.
7. 7
   Lift the lid. The rice should have absorbed all liquid, the grains fully separate and stained with the colour of the broth and tomato. A crust will have formed at the base of the pot — the perloo tradition prizes this, as jambalaya prizes its gratin and paella its socarrat. Scrape it up and fold it through the rice before serving. The chicken can be shredded from the bone at this point if preferred.